


The rules of dealing with an empath

by MissSlothy



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Empathy, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8127266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSlothy/pseuds/MissSlothy
Summary: Empath AU - from Danny's POVIt's the plume of black smoke rising over the docks that first tells Danny his day is shot to hell.But it’s Duke's deeply worried frown that confirms the day is about to get much worse.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I love reading AU's and I've wanted to write one for ever. This is my first attempt...

It's the plume of black smoke rising over the docks that first tells Danny his day is shot to hell.  
  
But it’s Duke's deeply worried frown that confirms the day is about to get much worse.  
  
He's worked closely with Duke since he came to the islands five years before.  Giving the command of the Governor's strike force to a haole from New Jersey hadn't gone down well with the local police force.  On day two, when he'd seriously been starting to reconsider his decision to follow Rachel and Grace to Hawaii, Sgt Duke Lukela had appeared.  
  
The Governor had decided that Captain Williams needed someone to act as liaison with the HPD, the veteran officer had explained, his expression implacable, even as his gaze had roamed around the chaos that was the newly formed Five-O HQ.  Someone who could show him around the islands, introduce him to a few people he needed to know, he’d added with a growing smile. 

Someone to show him how not to piss off any more of the locals, Danny had read between the lines.  
  
He'd accepted his help gratefully.  
  
Now as he pulls up alongside a row of hastily parked police cars, all with flashing blue lights, he can see from yards away that Duke’s usually genial expression is marred with a deep scowl.

With a sigh he pulls himself out of the Camaro, straightening his gun and badge.  He can count on one hand the number of times his friend has looked this worried.  With a growing sense of foreboding he squares his shoulders and prepares himself to face whatever horrors the criminal element of Hawaii have decided to share today.  
  
With a nod he drops in beside Duke and they start the walk towards the shell of the still burning warehouse.  Pausing to step over a fire hose, they continue their journey, their shoes squelching in the oily, dirty water that has flooded everything.  The fire’s still burning in the basement and they stand at the safety cordon for a moment, watching the fire crews fighting to put the fire out.  The overwhelming smell is gasoline, which would explain the inferno, he notes, licking his lips as the bitter smell fills his nose and mouth.   
  
"We got a call at 10.35 this morning that there had been an explosion,” Duke explains, his frown still firmly in place.

“Okay, so that’s HPD’s jurisdiction.  Why are we here?” He doesn’t mean to sound cold but a sudden escalation in criminal activity has meant the last month has been tough on the team.  They’ve got a shit load of work of their own without HPD passing off more.  His heart sinks though as Duke indicates two black shapes, carefully laid out on the ground, to one side.

Body bags.

“Shit.”  With a tired sigh he rubs his hand over his face before studying the burning building again.  He’d been hoping they’d get a respite from the body count ramping up. “Where did they find them?”

“Out front,” his friend confirms, pointing out what would have originally been the entrance door of the warehouse.  “We think there are at least two more people in there.”

“They’re still in there?” Instantly he feels his adrenaline level spike, his heart beating faster.  “Someone needs to get in there,” he shoots back, already striding towards the lead fire truck and hopefully somebody in charge.

 “There’s no point.”  Duke’s hand is on his shoulder, pulling him to a halt.  “They’re already dead.”

His brain struggles with the statement, the certainty in Duke’s tone.  “If we haven’t been in there we can’t be sure--“

Head bowed, Duke looks away for a second and when he looks back he’s clearly anxious about something.  “We’ve got a witness but—“

“Who?”  The shot of adrenaline is making him impatient and he mentally reminds himself to rein it in.  Impatience and tiredness are not a good combination for him.  Several heated meetings with the Governor are proof of that.

Taking a deep, calming breath he follows Duke as he leads him around the cordon, until they are nearly to the rear of the warehouse.  It’s darker here, the searing bright Hawaiian sunlight blocked out by the dark smoke but as it clears slightly he sees two people huddled on the ground behind the warehouse.

For a moment he thinks they’re the other victims that Duke’s told him about.  Then one of the bodies raises its head.  A pair of expressionless blue eyes stare back at him, the pupils blown wide, big black circles contrasting sharply in a pale, smoke smudged faced.

Transfixed, he stares back for a second.  A loud crash from the warehouse catapults him out of his reverie, the hastily yelled orders from the retreating firefighters reminding him of the potential danger they’re in.  Grabbing the tape marking out the cordon, he dips under it, ignoring Duke’s hissed warning. 

“Danny, stop!”

Duke’s hand is on his shirt sleeve but he shakes him free and keeps moving.  He’s not sure why this idiot is just sitting there, waiting for the warehouse to collapse on top of him but that’s not going to happen, not on his watch.

He stumbles to a halt, the smooth soles of his shoes slipping on the oily surface.  Righting himself he reaches out to drag the stranger to safety. And freezes.

The second person huddled on the ground is obviously dead.  He can tell that because his head is tilted sideways, at a 90 degree angle from his neck.

His neck is broken.

And the idiot with the blue eyes is covered in blood.

His gun is out of his holster before he even realises it.  The expressionless, blue eyes don’t flinch and it throws him for a second, the absolute _emptiness._ And then he blinks.  And suddenly the stranger’s eyes are full of heart-wrenching sorrow.

“Danny!  Don’t touch him.”

Touching him is the last thing he’s capable of right now, he realises, panic starting to build in one corner of his mind.  There’s an overwhelming feeling of sadness enfolding him like a blanket, constricting him, digging a deep, dark, empty hole in his chest.  There’s yearning and loss and hopelessness and the last time he can remember feeling like this was when his brother Mattie died.

“Danny?”

Duke’s speaking gently to him like he’s a spooked horse, he realises, suddenly wondering what his friend is seeing right now.  Forcing himself to move he tightens his grip on his gun and focuses on the man on the ground.

What he sees feels like a punch to the gut.  The blue eyes are full of guilt, widened in panic.  Breathing heavily, the stranger’s lips are moving but no words are coming out.

“He’s an empath,” Duke whispers quietly in his ear, handing over an evidence bag with ID cards in it.  “Military.  Navy.”

Fuck.

They’ve all heard stories about empaths.  He knew a few back in New Jersey.  Good people, just trying to live their lives normally, despite having to register with the National Sensory Institute.  And having to put up with the stupidity of those around them, idiots that believed empaths could read their thoughts from a hundred yards.  But the military empaths…. They were a different breed altogether.  Only the best got to enlist.  Which meant the guy huddled in front of him, his clothes scorched and damp, was seriously gifted.

A seriously gifted empath who had probably just killed someone with his bare hands,  who had been present when at least two other people had died a violent death and was now sitting in the middle of a disaster zone, where everyone’s stress levels must be off the scale.

Oh.

Instinctively he finds himself kneeling down, reaching out, wanting to offer comfort, but he doesn’t need another hissed warning from Duke to remind him not to touch.  With horror he watches the stranger flinch and he snatches his hands back, deliberately tucking them into his pants pockets, out of harm’s way. 

Empath interaction rule 101 – don’t touch.  It’s one of the first rules they’d taught in the police academy.

The desolation in the blue eyes is almost enough to make him reach out and touch again though.

The evidence bag in his hand offers a welcome distraction.  Smoothing it out he peers at the name on the ID cards.  “Steve?  I’m Danny Williams, from Five-0.  We need to get you out of here, okay?”  Flipping the card over he checks the contact details on the other side.  Military empaths, if he remembers correctly, don’t work alone.  Considered too valuable to risk they always have a guard with them.

So where is McGarrett’s guard?

His eyes drift to the other body with growing alarm until Duke corrects him with a shake of his head.  “I called Navy Intelligence,” he confirms quietly.  “That’s not his guard, they’re sending someone.  The dead man is Victor Hesse.  Commander McGarrett was tracking him.”

With a nod of his head he files that piece of information for future investigation.  He knows that empaths were often used in interrogations but he didn’t realise they could also track people.

As the sound of something else crashing to the floor echoes around the shell of the warehouse, he holsters his gun and pushes himself stiffly to his feet.  “We still need to get him out of here,” he insists, looking over his shoulder at the swarm of emergency personnel that seems to be growing by the minute.  “Have the forensics guys been in?” he asks with a nod towards the dead body.

“And the Medical Examiner,” Duke confirms.  “They only did a preliminary sweep though.  We had to pull them back.”

Running his fingers through his hair, he surveys he scene one last time. “I don’t think they’re gonna get back in there any time soon,” he sighs, narrowing his eyes against the golden flames that are licking their way up the side of the building.  “Get the M.E back over here to look after Hesse.  I’ll take McGarrett back to HQ until the Navy comes to collect him.”

It’s not until the words are out of his mouth that he realises how flippant he sounds.  Talking about someone as if they’re an inanimate object (even if they are almost inanimate right now) is not going to gain him friends.

Apparently McGarrett agrees, he realises, as he catches the blue eyes again.  The pupils are still blown-wide, his body language radiating distress but there’s a glimmer of anger in there too. 

He finds that strangely reassuring.

“Sorry,” is what he says out loud though, kneeling down again.  Touch, he knows, can be viewed by some empaths as invasive.  But right now he’s hoping that making eye contact is acceptable because for some reason he wants this guy to understand he’s not a total jerk.

He’s rewarded a moment later when McGarrett nods, then closes his eyes, letting out a long, shaky sigh.  He stays that way for a moment before opening them slowly again.  The pupils are almost back down to normal although his complexion is still frighteningly pale.  And the rigid set of his shoulders isn’t exactly screaming relaxation.

It’s a start though.

He watches as McGarrett slowly gets to his feet, resisting the urge again to touch as the other man wavers on his feet and then quickly recovers.  He’s holding up the cordon tape again, waiting for McGarrett and Duke to follow him through when McGarrett halts, his eyes narrowing as he scans the area in front of him.

“Danny!”

Turning round, he spots Chin heading towards him.  He’s about to wave him over, to bring him up to speed on what’s happening when his friend slows, his smiling face morphing into a frown of confusion.  “Steve?”

For a moment Danny imagines this must be what it’s like watching a tennis match.  Turning his head from side to side he watches as gradually first one, and then the other, recognise each other.  “You know each other?”

It’s a statement rather than a question – he’s not blind.  But he needs to understand what his relationship with Chin is.  McGarrett might be Naval Intelligence but they’ve still got several dead bodies on their hands.

“We went to school together,” Chin explains, his welcoming smile dying as he catches sight of the corpse behind McGarrett, the grotesque angle of the head suddenly illuminated by the flare of a flame.  “What the hell—“

“I can explain.”  McGarrett’s voice is low, gravelly, and it’s accompanied by a hacking, smoke-fuelled cough.

“You, buddy, are going to explain this at the Emergency Room,” he breaks in, swearing silently as his hands betray him again.  He so much wants to _touch_.

The look of horror on McGarrett’s face is enough to make him focus again.  Stupid, stupid idea, the little voice in his head berates him.  Throwing a traumatised empath into an Emergency Room would probably short-circuit his brain for good.  McGarrett’s looking backwards and forwards between him and Chin, his eyes pleading for them to understand. 

With an exasperated sigh, he folds.  “Chin, can you take him to HQ and get a statement?  We’ll tell Naval Intelligence where he is.  Duke and I will stay and wait for the M.E and Forensics Team to finish.”

Once they’re all a safe distance from the fire again he watches silently as Chin leads McGarrett away.  At least he’s mobile, he notes with approval, as the empath seems to grow stronger with each step.  Chin’s walking close, close enough for their elbows to brush, he notices, narrowing his eyes in concentration. 

If he didn’t know better it would look like that brief touch alone is what’s giving McGarrett the extra energy to keep moving.

But that would be stupid, right? his confused brain shoots back.  Because that would mean everything he’s been taught about empaths is wrong.

H50H50H5H50

It’s another two hours before he makes it back to HQ.  Bone-tired he drags himself out of his car and up the stairs to his office.  It says something about his level of exhaustion that he’s two steps into his office before he even notices it’s already occupied.  “What the---“

“Ssh.  You’ll wake him up.”  Kono’s snuck up behind him and he has to bite back a yelp of surprise.

Yep, he really must be tired.

Not as tired as McGarrett must have been, he thinks, studying the man now soundly asleep on his couch.  Dressed in a fresh tee and jeans, his cleanly shaven face looks starkly pale and razor sharp thin.  Despite having two people staring at him he hasn’t stirred at all.

Slowly he closes the door and follows Kono when she nods towards Chin’s office.  He repeats the exercise again, gently closing the door behind him, slumping down in the nearest chair before glaring at his friends.

“Sorry, brah,” Chin shrugs back, clearly unrepentant.  “He was going to drop where he was standing.  We just steered him to the nearest couch.”

“Which just happened to be mine,” he bites back tiredly, his hands waving with exasperation.  “You do realise he’s a witness and/or a potential suspect in a murder case.  The guy with the dislocated head,” he reminds them, demonstrating the lethal damage with a loose wiggle of his head, “You remember him, right?”

Chin remains silent, his lips pursed tightly in a thin line.  His friend is angry, he realises, his tired brain finally kicking in. Furiously angry, he corrects, looking closely at his tense body language.  He’s about to ask what the hell is happening when Kono takes pity on him, raising her eyebrows and jerking her chin towards the far side of office.

Levering himself halfway out of his chair he peers through the blinds of Chin’s office.  Over in the far corner, with a good view of the entrance points of the HQ, is sat a man in full tactical gear, with an ear piece and carrying some serious weaponary.

“Steve’s guard,” Chin grinds out, as he twists back round to stare at both of them.

“When they said a guard I thought they meant like…like a bodyguard…to protect him,” he blurts out, levering himself back up for another look.  “That’s Robo-Cop.”  Thumping back down in to the chair he stares blindly at the floor, trying to get his thoughts straight.  “What the--?  He doesn’t need that.  He broke a guy’s neck for crying out loud.  You can’t tell me he learnt how to do that himself.”

His voice has risen, he realises, as the guard shifts, turning his gaze in their direction.  There’s anger bubbling in his veins though, indignant, outraged anger. 

“They like to protect their property.”  Chin’s voice is sharp, bitter, cutting through his thoughts like a sharp knife.

“Or maybe they’re protecting us from him,” Kono suggests quietly, her legs tugged under her body in a protective gesture.

“Cuz…”

Chin’s growled warning has her raising her hand, placating him.  “I know, okay?  I’ve only just met him but there’s something about him…I trust him.  But the Navy, they’re treating him like a weapon.” 

“That’s insane,” he hears himself saying.  But even as he’s saying the words he already knows he doesn’t believe them.   And then the bitter memory of his flippant comment about ‘property’ flashes sharp in his mind.

No wonder McGarrett had seemed so angry.

The sudden knowledge that the man sleeping in his office is being controlled simply because of fate and nature makes his stomach roil and he swallows hard.

“There were rumours, back when we were kids,” Kono continues, her mouth turned down in an unhappy frown, “about what happened to empaths.  How they couldn’t live normal lives.”

“That’s bullshit,” he pushes back defensively, already annoyed with himself because he knows Kono’s doesn’t believe this crap anymore.  And because he used to believe those rumours too. 

“But not for Steve’s family.”

Chin’s voice is so quiet he nearly misses it.  Blinking with shock, he focuses on his friend’s face, his heart sinking at the sorrow reflected there.  “Steve’s old man used to work with HPD as a profiler, he was killed in a raid when Steve was 15.  His mother disappeared a few years later.  His sister Mary is in California, she has a history of drugs and alcohol abuse.  They were all highly functioning empaths.”

“Damn…”  He lets the single word out on a breath, his body sinking further into the chair.  They’ve all heard rumours about empaths living out in the wilderness, away from the noise of civilisation.  And substance abuse isn’t unusual either.

How the hell did McGarrett survive from day to day?

“In High School Steve used to struggle,” Chin breaks into his thoughts, unconsciously answering his question for him.  “As his empathic abilities emerged the people around him became more…distant.”

“But the two of you remained friends?”  It’s not a big stretch to assume that, he realises, remembering the way they’d walked side by side.  There hadn’t been any distance.  “You were touching,” he adds for clarity, sucking his bottom lip thoughtfully as he studies his friend. 

Head titled to one side, Chin studies him in return.  “There’s nothing wrong with touching, brah,” he finally explains, gently, including Kono in his gaze.  “Empaths don’t like being touched without warning, it doesn’t give them a chance to regulate the emotions they are sensing.  It can amplify everything, overwhelm them.  But the effect works both ways.”

“Are you saying an empath could overwhelm someone with their emotions?”  That would fit with some of the stories he’s heard about empaths, he thinks.  There’s an element of fear linked with the word ‘empath’.  Maybe there’s some truth in the rumours.

“A high functioning empath like Steve would be able to,” Chin confirms slowly, obviously picking his words with care.  “Usually they’re trained not to.  And it’s one of the reasons they have to be registered.  But that’s not what I meant.”  Taking a deep breath, he leans forward, leaning his elbows on his knees.  “Sometimes, usually when they haven’t got full control, we can influence empaths.”

As the room falls silent he mentally runs back through what had happened that day.  The overwhelming feeling of despair he’d suddenly experienced when he’d met McGarrett, the way the empath had seemed to revive in Chin’s company.  “His senses were screwed when we got there,” he states with sudden understanding, as several parts of the puzzle fall firmly into place.  “He was radiating emotions all over the place.  And then you turn up and it’s like someone’s flicked a switch.”

“Positive thoughts,” Chin confirms with a nod of his head, “Just enough to give him some control back.”

“So why doesn’t anyone know about this?” Kono asks, her expression sympathetic as she looks in the direction where McGarrett is sleeping.  “Highly functioning empaths are feared.  If everyone knew about this then—“

“—they could take advantage,” he buts in, sadness tinging his words.  Robo-Cop sitting out in the office makes a lot more sense now.  The military needs empaths.  But it needs them to be in control.  “Is that what happened today?” he asks Chin, with a rapidly growing sense of dread.  “Did this Hesse guy make McGarrett do something by influencing his emotions?”

“No.” Chin’s grim tone does nothing to improve his feeling of anxiety as his friend hands over his tablet, the interview with McGarrett showing on the screen.  “Hesse used the two victims in the warehouse to distract Steve.  He linked them up to a timer and a bomb and when Steve turned up—“

“—he blew them up,” he finishes for Chin, slumping forward to rest his head in his hands.  “The victims would have known what was going to happen to them.  And so would Steve.”

“That’s…awful.”  Kono’s words are whispered, wobbly, and he can hear she’s swallowing back tears. 

Taking deep breaths himself he quickly reads through the report.  It confirms what Chin’s told him and that McGarrett did kill Hess.  Despite the horrific image of Hess’s body imprinted clearly in his mind he can’t find it in himself to feel sorry for the man.  If McGarrett hadn’t done it then Five-0 would have gone after him themselves.

Taking another deep breath and letting it out slowly, he glances back through the blinds at Robo-Cop.  Reluctantly he gets to his feet, reaching up to smooth back his hair.   “Okay, we’ve got everything we need from McGarrett.  We can let him leave.”

“Danny!”  The protest from Chin isn’t unexpected.  What he hadn’t planned for was a protest from Kono.  “He’s not well, you can see that.  We should—“

“He’s doing a job, Kono.”  The words taste bitter on his tongue but they’re the truth.  He doesn’t like this any more than his friends do but their only part in this is the case.  And they’ve got McGarrett’s statement. “It’s none of our business.”

The words almost choke him, make him drop his head again, unable to meet his friends’ eyes.  This is ridiculous, he thinks, as another wave of anger and frustration fills his mind.  They interview witnesses and victims every day.  They haven’t got time to get personally involved, no matter how wrong they might think a situation is.

He’s silently reminding himself of that fact, repeatedly, when the door opens to reveal McGarrett.  And he finds himself back at square one again.

Rest hasn’t improved McGarrett’s complexion.  Still pale, with dark grey smudges under his eyes, his brow seems to be wrinkled in a permanent frown.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” McGarrett apologises hesitantly, his gaze travelling to each of them in turn.  “It’s just if you’ve finished with me I need to go before Henry starts getting nervous,” he continues, looking back over his shoulder at his guard.

“Robo-Cop is called _Henry_?” he hears himself blurt out, incredulously.

To his relief McGarrett doesn’t say anything, just lifts one eyebrow in his direction.  There’s a glimmer of humour in his eyes though, an unexpected warmth that makes his chest tighten with emotion.  Without really thinking about what he’s doing he reaches behind McGarrett and pushes the door shut, so the four of them are enclosed in the office.  Through the blinds he can see Robo-Cop (there’s no way he’s calling him _Henry)_ coming towards them, his hand dropping towards his gun.  And beside him Steve’s tense, suggesting this isn’t his cleverest idea ever.  But there’s no way they’re letting this man go without showing him _somehow_ that he’s not on his own out there.

It’s Chin who rescues the moment, Chin with his big heart and his ability not to judge people without reason who steps forward, his arms spread wide.  Without hesitation McGarrett steps into them, curling himself down and around.  They stay still for a long moment until with a soft sigh and a whispered ‘mahalo’ McGarrett pulls away again.

Kono steps up next, standing on tiptoe to pull the other man in.  A brief look of surprise flashes across McGarrett’s face before his expression turns thoughtful and he leans in, stiffly at first, like a reluctant nephew hugging an aging aunt, then suddenly his whole body relaxes.  When he pulls away, slowly, there is a small smile on his face.  “So much joy,” he murmurs, studying Kono’s face again, like she’s a puzzle he wants to solve.

And then it’s his turn.

Insanely he finds himself hesitating.  He’s a tactile man, never hesitates to touch without thinking, usually.  But for that reason empaths have always been off-limits to him, particularly high-functioning ones.  From an early age his Mom had taught him that touching empaths was dangerous.  And it’s his Mom’s voice he can hear in his head right now.

What he’s thinking must be written all over his face, he suddenly realises, because McGarrett stops mid-step.  A look of disappointment flashes across his face and then it’s gone, replaced by a cold mask.  This is the Navy man, he vaguely thinks, even as he’s forcing his body forward, making eye contact, trying to make it clear with every inch of his body the regret he feels.

“Sorry,” he babbles frantically but the words are muffled as he’s pulled into an embrace.  It’s warm, all encompassing, so _human,_ and it unlocks something in his head.  He hugs back, pulling in hard, putting everything he feels into it, hoping with all his heart that Chin is right, that empaths can be influenced in good ways, not just bad.

He’s rewarded when McGarrett breaks the hug to lean forward and lightly place his hand over his heart, the corners of his mouth flicking up in a grateful smile.  “Thank you.”

The sound of the door slamming open shatters the moment: in an instant the office is full of Robo-Cop, tense, nervous and determined to get his charge back to the local Naval base.

They watch as McGarrett goes without protest, his shoulders braced, his long steps confident.  It’s an act, they can all see it, despite the short time they’ve known this man.  But there’s nothing they can do about it.

As he goes back to his office to start the endless mound of paperwork that accompanies every case, he knows he’s not the only one who feels like they’ve failed him.

H50H50H50

Steve McGarrett isn’t far from any of their thoughts over the next few months but it’s not until Chin barges into his office one day, a report obtained from a friend in Naval Intelligence in his hand, that they’re finally presented with a solution to put right the mistake they all feel they’ve made.

As he pulls into the parking lot at Tripler Military Hospital he wonders, not for the first time, whether he should have contacted the Governor and discussed his plans.  It’s not really a plan though, he acknowledges, as he heads for the reception area, it’s just more of a gut _feeling_.

But that’s probably the way it should be for this particular situation.

As he’s directed deeper into the building, further away from the bustling part of the hospital and into longer, more sparsely populated corridors, he begins to feel his anxiety levels ramp up.  He’s only discussed this with Chin and Kono but he wouldn’t put it past the Navy to have people monitoring them, misdirecting him as soon as he’d arrived at Tripler.

Robo-Cop, he imagines, hadn’t been slow reporting their behaviour when he’d returned to base.

As he arrives at the floor he’s been directed to he scans the area closely, expecting to see Robo-Cop or one of his friends.  The waiting area is empty though, apart from two nurses working at the reception desk, and they look surprisingly friendly.  Taking a deep breath he tells himself he’s just being a paranoid idiot and asks for McGarrett’s room.

Letting himself into McGarrett’s room he stops just inside the door and lets out another breath, low, shaky, his shoulders slumping.  Hand half-covering his face, he looks away, swallowing hard.   “Oh babe.”

The softly spoken words slip out, his brain unable to think of anything else to say.  Asleep on the bed, McGarrett makes no sign of having heard him.  He’s not surprised though: covered in wires and surgical dressings, there’s no doubt in his mind the other man must be heavily drugged with pain medication.  And that’s before he’s even looked at McGarrett’s right leg.  The severe leg injury that, according to the report that Chin had obtained, will lead shortly to McGarrett being medically discharged from the Navy.

Suddenly it occurs to him that he really should have checked on McGarrett’s status before coming here.  It’s obvious he’s not up to any conversation and it makes him feel like some sick voyeur.  He’s on the verge of leaving, got his hand on the door, when he realises he’s being watched.  When he turns McGarrett’s eyes are barely open, squinting at him.  Confusion is written across his face.

“Captain Williams?”

The words are barely there, strung together with effort and he feels guilty all over again.  Leaving would just seem like an insult though.  And that’s the last thing he wants to do. So he turns back to the bed, plastering an encouraging smile on his face.  “You’re awake,” he starts, cringing inwardly at the rubbish coming out of his mouth.  “No Robo-Cop,” he tries again, waving back at the door to illustrate when McGarrett’s squint doesn’t change. 

“No point,” McGarrett finally answers, shifting uncomfortably in the bed, blinking hard as though clearing his vision.  “I’m not Navy anymore.”

The words are delivered in a disinterested monotone but he doesn’t need to be an empath to know that the words hurt.  Hurt deeply.  McGarrett looks away but not before he sees the utter devastation in the blue eyes.

It’s like a vice around his heart, the sympathy he feels for this man.  Anger flares, defensive, protective and he opens his mouth to protest the injustice of just discarding someone because they’re of no use any more.

“Don’t.”

The whispered plea is enough for him to stop, to actually _stop_ and look.  McGarrett’s frown has deepened, his face twisted in pain.  He wasn’t clearing his vision, he realises belatedly, he was trying to deal with the emotions he could feel in the room. 

From him.

Shit.

“Sorry.”  Feeling like a total jerk he wavers for a second between staying and leaving.  McGarrett makes the decision for him, nodding towards a chair by the bed.  Hesitantly he takes it, using the distraction of getting comfortable to look around the room, to calm his mind.  It's bleak, empty, even by normal hospital standards.  McGarrett watches him silently but he’s relieved to see the frown relax slightly as the minutes pass.

“Is that why they’ve put you in here?” he asks eventually, when the silence gets too much for his naturally talkative brain to take.  “Because they’re discharging you from the Navy?”

He thinks he’s gone too far again when McGarrett scowls at him.  But suddenly he rolls his eyes, his lips curving up at the corners.  It instantly makes him look younger.  More alive. 

It makes him catch his breath.

“I’m an empath,” McGarrett explains slowly, like an adult speaking to a small child.   “This is a hospital.  They have separate floors for us.  Stops us from becoming overwhelmed,” he adds, tapping the side of his head.

“Ah.”  It’s seems stupidly obvious now it’s been explained and he concedes his lack of knowledge with a sheepish smile.  “Looks like I’ve got a lot to learn.”

The blunt confession instantly gains him McGarrett’s attention but his eyes are shadowed with pain and just a hint of impatience.

He takes the hint.

It’s time for him to make his request.

After he’s explained the purpose of his visit - Five-0’s need for its own profiler - he falls silent, giving McGarrett time to think over the offer. He’s played out this moment in his head many times before coming here.  He’s tried to guess McGarrett’s reactions, to have arguments ready to overcome any objections.

What he doesn’t expect is for Steve to close his eyes, his expression becoming shuttered, physically blocking him out.

He blinks in surprise, unsure what to do.  His arguments are always based on talking, and moving and _noise._ This silent treatment has thrown him for a loop.  As the silence stretches out he gets to his feet and starts pacing.

He doesn’t know what else to do.

“Sorry,” an apologetic voice interrupts his thoughts.  Turning he finds Steve watching him, his expression wary.  “You were projecting…a _lot_.  I didn’t want you to think afterwards that you’d influenced my decision.”

Apologising again for his lack of knowledge seems like a waste of breath, so he waits, trying _not_ to will Steve to accept.

It’s the strangest way of communicating with anyone he’s ever experienced.

“Don’t worry, you’ll learn.”

There’s a hint of laughter in Steve’s voice and for a second he bristles indignantly.  Until the words sink in.

Unable to hold back any longer, he allows himself a big grin.  “You’re accepting?  You’re sure?”

“I am.”  For the first time he can see a real spark of life in Steve’s eye, he’s just _radiant_ , and in that moment he’s absolutely certain that he, Chin and Kono have made the right decision.  “I’d like to join Five-0.”


End file.
